Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
If one is eligible for an HSA (i.e. already has a HDHP), then even given the low rates, it seems to make sense to open (a zero cost) HSA.
May not be worth using it for saving, but one still gets tax benefits from using it as a spending account. I…
Reply to @Charles: Thanks for the light tone. Some day I'll start a thread on loads and advisors, and we can flail away :-).
(I do not pay loads, but I also don't discount funds because someone else chooses to; nor do I begrudge people who kno…
If you can afford to put aside the extra cash and do have (only) a high deductible health plan (HDHP), then HSAs can be great for retirement savings. But you need to be careful.
Just because an expense is listed in Pub 502 (see bee's link) doesn'…
Though I generally agree that the moniker ETF is abused, it seems that Ferri tries to have his cake and eat it too.
There are two basic axes discussed here - the legal structure (and the associated mechanics to make them work), and in what constitu…
Glad to see The Japan Fund (SJPNX), while being closed (thanks Ted) isn't on the liquidation list.
That fund has a long, storied past (summarized below). It serves to show what a truly independent board of directors can do, firing fund families ra…
Thanks for the insight. I hadn't bothered to check what other funds this team runs.
MPEGX. I haven't followed that for many years. Great fund originally, and institutional shares were accessible at the retail level via Schwab, Fidelity, and Ja…
Charles, your objections to loads and devotion to full fund records are clear and noted. However, regarding these factors as determinative without examining them more closely can sometimes lead one to conclusions that, shall we say, are less than …
For MFO reader comments on the underlying paper, along with those of John Rekenthaler and M* readers, see this thread ("Do Retirees Have It Backward"):
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/index.php?p=/discussion/9453/do-retirees-have-it-backw…
I think you're drawing your own conclusions from the piece. Dearing's thesis, as he laid out in his opening paragraphs, is that "product integrity and trust" are being compromised. Not that innovation is harmed, not that growth is stifled.
Dear…
The mention of Noyce and Moore in the context of company integrity (trust) couldn't help but bring to mind the way their company, Intel, handled the Pentium floating point bug - based on business profits, not trust:
http://www.willamette.edu/~mjaneb…
The 1.25% ER includes a waiver of 0.40%, per prospectus. That is, absent the waiver, the ER would be 1.65%. While this should drop somewhat as the fund increases its AUM (assets under management), it will never be an inexpensive fund. Its stra…
Thanks for the response. It is a much different process starting a fresh search, as you seem to have done, than switching funds. Funds that could be good often fall under the radar - the current incarnation of UMBIX seems to be a good example of…
I think that in their own ways, both David and kutuzov are answering your question in the affirmative: yes, if a fund recently swapped a manager with a poor (recent) record for a manager who turned in better performance, the fund's ratings will not …
"If you've invested or are considering investing in a stock or bond fund that has a waiver in place, that current reduction may be only temporary. In most cases there won't be any dramatic jump in expenses, but it can happen."
A few funds come to m…
Reply to @catch22: Fidelity's fund pages are often wrong about minimums, and sometimes also about whether they allow automatic investments (which affects whether you can add to a TF fund for $5). I've indicated errors to them on more than one occa…
Not a typo. The 2003 Marketwatch article references a report in the March edition of CR. There is no mutual fund article in the March 2013 edition. BUFSX was not a "newcomer" (as described in the article) in 2013.
CR changed its methodology a…
I ran across the Barron's annuity article when searching for info on one of the annuities mentioned. (I want to give john credit for posting the article, hence this late update to the thread.)
Not trying to start a discussion on the merits and de…
GGN is a managed distribution fund. Quoting from Gabelli literature:
"A fund's distributions may contain a return of capital, which should not be counted as the 'yield'. ... Investors, ever eager for income, rely on sources which fail to use the…
Are you sure about #8? (9!)?
Though writing the whole expression upside down does offer an outside the box solution:
(8 + 8/8) = 9. Turning it upside down, the eights remain eights and the nine becomes six :-)
Allow cube roots and the problem …
DavidV basically gave the solution, but worked too hard at it. Factorial (no trig) is all that's needed. 0! = 1 = cos(0).
Edit: posted before reading your hint.
"If the pre-paid cards take off, the days of freeloading with a free float will come to an end. "
Traveler Cheques 2.0
You often pay a fee for the prepaid card, and it is the issuer, not you, that gets the free float.
Personal tracking/loss of privacy is something I've been opposing for decades. My approach is similar but slightly different from yours.
I'm willing to use loyalty cards so long as there isn't personal information directly attached. Some stores…
Same downgrade from gold for its load sibling (clone?) Davis NY Venture NYVTX.
T'was the week before Christmas. It seems Davis hasn't looked in its stocking yet. It still shows both Selected American and Davis NY Venture as gold rated.
I would love to have no debit cards. Unfortunately, many banks, it seems including all(?) internet banks, force a debit card on you if you want an ATM card. (Some brick and mortar banks will give you an ATM-only card if you ask.)
It seems debit…
Nice analysis. Your highlighting the relatively poor performance of EM components in broader based funds brings to mind David's request for a large cap int'l fund with solid EM exposure.
In light of the poor EM performance, D&C Int'l (DODFX)'…
Reply to @Investor:
The problem with this recommendation is that this strategy doesn't yield more than cash as the author defined it, and bonds have additional risks and other issues that cash does not.
Here's the current corporate bond yield curv…
Regarding the Vanguard MMF cap gains distribution:
It was a short term gain, so from a tax purpose, it's reported along with the income dividends. No separate number, no tax issue whatsoever. This is a case not of Chuck making a mountain out of …
These two funds track different indexes. It seems to me the first question is which index are you interested in - a DJ index of all US stocks that have readily available prices, or and index that takes "just" the largest 2500 of these. It's sort…
I think D&C is one of the best for broad international exposure including EM. A quick search doesn't turn up many funds with current comparable commitment to EMs, let alone more.
One you might consider, at least if you have access to the inst…
Regarding Fidelity - while their gaffs are more the exception than the rule, I've seen more than a few there as well.
A few months ago, a relative transferred an account out of Fidelity. Fidelity properly liquidated the fractional share of an ETF…
I tried out Scottrade a decade ago, and gave up with them in part because they seemed to have similar problems reinvesting monthly dividends from a bond fund.
There was an even bigger mess when I tried closing the account - they sent the IRS a 109…
The Summit GNMA fund (PRSUX) has an ER of 0.61%, and the retail GNMA fund (PRGMX) has an ER of just 0.59%.
It is curious that TRP won't tell anyone why they want to merge the funds until weeks after the record date, and will in fact close the Summi…
"Mr. Fuss said he sees a 10% chance of the Fed tapering its bond purchases this month, whereas he previously put the odds at 70%. One reason is the storm that triggered National Weather Service advisories from Tennessee to Massachusetts Tuesday."
S…
From Jane Bryant Quinn: There's no reason to own 10 or 15 [mutual funds], [financial planner Joseph] Tomlinson [of Greenville, Maine] says. They probably overlap each other. If you choose well-diversified funds, such as low-cost index funds that…
" 'Moving' investments into a trust is not a simple matter. Forms have to be completed, medallion stamped, certification mailed, etc. "
There are some transfers that require a lot of paperwork. You could need that paperwork for each different acco…
To the OP: As I understand what Fidelity told you, you could make whatever investments you had planned to make in the trust, today. Then once the cash transfer "cleared", you could move those investments to the trust. Same market exposure as if …
How many funds you have depends on what you're comfortable handling, and to a certain extent the size of your portfolio (you can't really have 50 funds with $100K - that would be $2K/fund, less than many funds' minimums).
I'm not fond of the minima…
Either others or I are misreading your tax situation. A single taxpayer in the Roth phaseout range is likely in the 28% tax bracket. (For example, the tax on $120K gross taxable income - with $11K of that in cap gains/qualified divs, using stand…
You wouldn't know from the article, but the Fidelity funds are achieving their ER via a temporary fee waiver.
(Actually, a tip off is that all the funds have the same ER. The funds are comprised of underlying index funds each with their own (d…
